Different take on kinect, only vehicle racing game available and it doesn’t work too bad

There are a ton of things to unlock in-game, so people that attempt to get everything will appreciate this

Controls are pretty solid

Graphics are good, music isn’t annoying

Kinect Joyride – The not so good

It’s basically Mario Kart for xbox

It does a good amount of guessing on when you would accellerate and brake, overall it’s ok, but not perfect

The vehicles are kind of like miniature, it would of been better with full size vehicles

Even though the activity level of this game is standing only, your arms do get tired after awhile without holding onto anything

Kinect Joyride – Story No story mode, but like I was saying, there are a ton of things to unlock. See the details under gameplay.

Kinect Joyride – Kinect experience Kinect works well for the most part, there really is no generalization on how big the steering wheel is and I found my hands sometimes not even relevant if I were holding onto a real steering wheel.

Kinect Joyride – Graphics The graphics are good, on par with the rest of the Kinect branded titles.

Kinect Joyride – Gameplay This is a fun game don’t get me wrong, but it is very very similar to Mario Kart for the Wii. It is good for 2 players, it can get somewhat boring for one player. I’m not sure if I would buy this game or not, it’s not real racing but it does have the fun factor. But that fun factor lasts about as long as Kinect Adventures did.

Onto the game itself, you get 3 cars to start with, I couldn’t tell a difference in speed or traction or anything. Honestly I think they are all the same in specifications, they just look different. There are 10 cars total, each car allows you to unlock 4 different submodels, such as a lowrider, a track version, etc…Again, I’m pretty sure it is just all for looks, but I could be wrong.

Driving in the game is fairly simple, pretend your holding onto a steering wheel, turn it left and right to steer. Accelleration and braking is automatic and it guesses fairly well when to apply each depending on when you are turning. My problem with it, and this won’t be a problem for everyone, I play a lot of regular racing games, especially need for speed and forza. Well these games teach you how to drive properly in racing games. When you would normally apply brakes going into the turn and then gas as you are coming out, this doesn’t really do it and it throws you into a drift slowing you down. Like I said though, this is just me. Most normal people that don’t play racing games won’t even notice it. You also get turbo boost, by leaning back, you build up your turbo, then pushing forward with both arms straight, you can use it. When you hit jumps, you get to do tricks/stunts. Leaning left and right do like barrel rolls, leaning forward and backward do flips. It’s different but ok with it.

As for the tracks and game modes, there’s quite a variety, but after you play them so many times, they do tend to get boring, but if you like to unlock stuff, you will look past the boring part.

The different game modes consist of:

– Pro Race – 7 Tracks In Pro Race, it’s regular racing except there are shortcuts with turbo boosts and you can use your own turbo boost. It’s ok but I wouldn’t call it “Pro” mode…more like regular mode.

– Battle Race – 7 Tracks (same as Pro Race tracks) In Battle Race, this is straight up Mario Kart except with your avatars and the shrunken cars. It has 6 different “power ups” that you can use during the race. This one I found somewhat annoying. Kids will like it though.

– Xbox Live Race – Pro or Battle Race Modes – same 7 tracks This is just on xbox live, although I believe you can bring 2 people into Xbox live racing using the guest option with your gold account, but I didn’t have another person to test it out with.

– Stunt Race – 2 tracks, 3 variants of each This is basically like halfpipes, and you do all kinds of tricks to get as many points as possible within a time limit. There are time bonuses and speed boosters, but I found it really challenging. On the beginner mode, I scored like 750,000 points and I thought I did good, but you need 1,000,000 to get a gold. It seems really challenging.

– Dash Race – 2 tracks, 4 variants of each Dash race sort of reminds me of a 1/4 mile drag race as there aren’t turns in it, but you can lean left/right to change lanes. It was ok, it’s all about speed in this one.

– Smash Race – 2 tracks, 3 variants of each This was another wierd one, you have to smash the statues but get a ton of points in the process. I understood it but it just didn’t have a fun factor to it.

– Trick Race – 2 tracks only This one I have no idea why the dev’s threw it in there. You have to do certain poses on your car’s wing because it turns into a James Bond vehicle with jet packs and wings, within a time limit and to try to get a bunch of points. Like disco fever pose, blowing a kiss pose, really strange stuff. This seemed to me like it was added because they didn’t know what else to do. Wierd!

Kinect Joyride – Multiplayer options There is 2 player simulatenous multiplayer mode, but I didn’t have an extra body to test out how well it worked, but I’m sure it was fine since this one was by in-house dev team.

Conclusion Overall, it’s not bad. I think it’s more geared for the casual crowd however, so if you are a casual gamer that wants to race once in awhile, then this is the game for you. If you are more into real racing games such as myself, we’ll have to wait and see what they do with Forza. Also the demo is up on Xbox Live in case you want to try it. I just went into all of the detail of what the full game offers if you are considering buying it. Hope this review helps! Kinect Joyride – Multiplayer options There is 2 player simulatenous multiplayer mode, but I didn’t have an extra body to test out how well it worked, but I’m sure it was fine since this one was by in-house dev team.

Conclusion Overall, it’s not bad. I think it’s more geared for the casual crowd however, so if you are a casual gamer that wants to race once in awhile, then this is the game for you. If you are more into real racing games such as myself, we’ll have to wait and see what they do with Forza. Also the demo is up on Xbox Live in case you want to try it. I just went into all of the detail of what the full game offers if you are considering buying it. Hope this review helps!

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